Rebecka Rutledge Fisher, associate professor of English and comparative literature and past director of the Program in Comparative Literature, has won a number of awards in student mentoring, and was, in spring 2017, named one of the “Carolina Women We Admire.” Her special interests are in the philosophy of literature as well as the critical philosophy of race, two subjects that are at the heart of her research and publications. She is the author of Habitations of the Veil: Metaphor and the Poetics of Black Being in African American Literature, has published an edition of Olaudah Equiano’s 18th century autobiography, and co-edited the volume Retrieving the Human: Reading Paul Gilroy, which was selected as recommended reading by the American Library Association’s Choice magazine. Her interest in the varied intersections of philosophy and literature encourages a synergy between academic work and personal worldview: she is especially drawn to beautiful works that delve into personal ethics, intellectual evolution, and inter-existence. She is currently writing a book (forthcoming from the University of South Carolina Press) on the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Natasha Trethewey, who served as Poet Laureate of the U.S. from 2012-2014.